The Meadow: Kashmir 1995 – Where the Terror Began

The Meadow: Kashmir 1995 – Where the Terror Began
Adrian Levy

Cathy Scott-Clark

They have come in search of many things – nirvana, exhilaration, a sense of self. But over the course of the next week, their holidays take a terrifying turn when they become entangled in a nail-biting hostage drama that will suck them into an alien world of jihad and Islamic fundamentalism. In the months that follow, their fates will become caught-up in a bloody struggle between India and Pakistan, fought out in the airless heights of Kashmir.With the world looking on, four of the captured travellers will vanish off the face of the earth, never to be seen again, creating one of the region’s great mysteries.Written with access to diaries, letters, unprocessed film and personal recollections from those enmeshed in the drama, drawing on classified police reports and secret tape recordings of Indian government negotiations, as well as interviews with the jihadis themselves and excerpts from their journals, Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark’s book is a real-life thriller, a startling but compelling story told from the perspective of all involved.The Meadow charts how the fates of two groups of young men from different hemispheres became inextricably entwined on the mountain trails they followed. It tells of the terrifying escape of one hostage, the heart-rending secret letters another wrote on birch bark and hid in his clothing as he contemplated his situation, and how, with a brutal beheading, the kidnappers took an irreversible step into the abyss.Packed with explosive revelations, The Meadow provides the first definitive answers as to what happened to the missing backpackers, revealing how the kidnapping of July 1995 changed the face of modern jihad, its architects going on to sow the seeds of a cold-hearted war against the West.

ADRIAN LEVY AND

CATHY SCOTT-CLARK

The Meadow

Terrorism, Kidnapping

and Conspiracy in Paradise

For all of the injured, the dead and the missing

The headlights filled the road. Everyone cried

out for mother and father’s love and as the

doors to the ascent opened the ballad began

again. For his disappeared love he went from

hole to hole, grave to grave, searching for the

eyes that don’t find. From gravestone to

gravestone, from cry to cry, it went through

niches, through shadows, and it went like this.

FROM RAÚL ZURITA, SONG FOR HIS DISAPPEARED LOVE, TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH BY DANIEL BORZUTZKY

(ACTION BOOKS, NOTRE DAME, INDIANA, 2010)

CONTENTS

Title Page (#ua172fb10-dfe1-58d8-8737-55847630efcf)

Dedication (#u1b368c30-1429-510e-a6bd-3c3ea828cab9)

List of Illustrations

MAPS: (#u7a086bf9-ec30-54fb-9773-ffb51ce12123)

South Asia (#ulink_828c3e1c-d12d-54f6-a1e7-1ae66bfb5f36)

Central Srinagar (#udc22c5e9-bfe5-566c-a47c-316d04a4466b)

Southern Kashmir and Doda District (#u39143b4f-4e40-575e-bd64-807732b02e6a)

Trekking and Pilgrimage Routes in Kashmir Valley (#u194fef49-9fa4-54d5-92a8-c1a71c9a7f9c)

Anantnag District (#ud5a98315-4a39-542a-94cf-d36e0004c312)

Dramatis Personae

Abbreviations

Prologue

1. Packing

2. A Father’s Woes

3. The Meadow

4. Home

5. Kidnap

6. The Night Callers

7. Up and Down

8. Hunting Dogs

9. Deadline

10. Tikoo on the Line

11. Winning the War, Call by Call

12. The Golden Swan

13. Resolution Through Dialogue

14. Ordinary People

15. The Squad

16. The Game

17. The Goldfish Bowl

18. Chor-Chor Mausere Bhai (All Thieves are Cousins)

19. Hunting Bears

20. The Circus

Epilogue: Fill Your Arms with Lightning

Picture Section (#uba1639e4-b08a-5a44-9e5f-722a479022dd)

Acknowledgements

A Note on Sources

About the Authors

Praise (#ud2e6cc2c-e98e-520a-bc0d-2a9d28f06421)

By the Same Authors

Copyright